The Morphing of Community and Friendship

My understanding of community has morphed through the years. Time, failure in relationships, brutal betrayal, sacrificial love and unimaginable kindness by strangers have all helped develop my experience of being in and practicing community--of sharing friendship.If you have read some of my books, you have been a witness to my progressive revelation of what community is and what it is not. In 2006, I was shaped and impacted by the words of psychologist David Benner when he says that friendship has several non-negotiable ingredients—one of which is this: True friendship and community must be reciprocal. There must be give and take in healthy relationships. No one person can be the one who gives all the time. No one person can do all the initiating. It must be reciprocal. It must be shared. It must be give and take and back and forth. Benner penned these words in my very first book, The Transformation of a Man’s Heart. That clarification helped me greatly to distinguish what had become a fuzzy boundary in my life in relationships where I was paid to be people’s friends in ministry as a pastor. When I grasped the needed quality of having reciprocal relationships, I learned to distinguish between people who were really my “work” and people who were really my “friends.” It helped me and still helps me know who I am to the few people I can find in my life that actually do want to be reciprocal rather than one of us feeling like we are doing all the giving and thus someone else is doing all the taking.In 2008, I wrote in a chapter in Soul Custody titled, “Soul Companions: Choosing your Friends” that companionship is one of God’s great desires for us. Since God is Trinity—and we are created in the image of God—we learn that the soul was created to actually be in and thrive by community. It really is not good to be by ourselves in this life. There’s a lot in that chapter about loneliness and moving out of loneliness into the actual experience of tasting true friendship. As I read that chapter today, I can clearly see my own pilgrimage in attempting to move beyond my own inner loneliness to a sense of connectedness and community.In 2012, I wrote an important book titled, The Jesus Life. There’s an anchor chapter in this book about “The Way of Companionship.” I wrote this chapter reflecting on one of the greatest hurts and wounds in the erosion of what I thought was a friend. Through a deep betrayal, a friendship ended and has never been resurrected to this day. I still wonder how something that deep and tearing could ever be repaired and would I even WANT it to be? It was in this year that I discovered a small and seemingly insignificant verse in the Gospel of John where we are told that Jesus “would not entrust himself to them for he knew all people” (John 2:24). Jesus was speaking about his companions at a table he was having dinner with. He somehow knew in his interior soul that some of the people around him—perhaps already in his circle were just were not safe. That one, small verse gave me fodder for the fire in my heart to grasp friendship even more deeply. Here I learned that Jesus did not give his heart away like we were taught in Sunday School. He guarded his own heart and was not fully vulnerable. Perhaps, in my quest to be like Jesus, I would need to reign in my heart and be more careful about who I called, “friend” and with whom I told my secrets to in life.In 2014, we moved out of the city where we had lived  for a dozen years and uprooted our lives to live near our retreat. We wanted our life to be integrated. I wanted to “do my life” in one place and not be so divided. We left our church. We left our small group. We left our home and have tried to put down roots where our work, life , church and friends can have a sense of synergy, connectedness and harmony. It’s not been easy to be truthful.But in the last few months some new light has come into my quest to understand community even more. The prolific 21^st century sage, prophet, farmer and spiritual guru, Wendell Berry, wrote a few sentences that stopped my in my tracks in trying to grasp community. He writes, “Community, I am beginning to understand, is made through a skill I have never learned or valued: the ability to pass time with people you do not and will not know well, talking about nothing in particular, with no end in mind, just to build trust, just to be sure of each other, just to be neighborly. A community is not something that you have, like a camcorder or a breakfast nook. No, it is something you do. And you have to do it all the time. “His words were like a light bulb for me. Something that felt dark became a little more filled with light.  Community is something you do and you practice.   So, with renewed wind in my sails, Berry’s words have helped me want, desire to practice community. We went to church on Sunday and sat in chairs surrounded by some “friends” and neighbors where we live. We passed the peace to each other when the preacher asked us to; we stood up together and sang the Doxology and sat down to pray the Lord’s prayer together in unison. With one voice; one motion, and in one building we found ourselves warmly connected. It was stirring for me in a deep way. I was practicing Berry’s plea for what authentic community actually is and actually does. Slowly we will build trust. We invited one couple to join us for lunch. We began a new journey of practicing casual friendship. We are both new to our new town; new to our shared neighborhood and in a new stage of life together. There’s a lot in common to build upon. There is some ground now to “practice” all that I have learned thus far in my life about friendship and community.No voice has impacted me more deeply than the prophetic words of poet and author David Whyte. He writes,, “Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die.” Read that again.   Don’t read anything more than his sentence: “Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die.” He is telling us that friendship is not about being right. Community is not rooted in the affinity where everyone believes the same thing.  It is not about have the same political views and sharing the same doctrine. He is telling us that the soul of friendships will shrivel and die unless we practice tolerance and mercy with one another. We will not always agree. 90% of all business partnerships fail.  We simply need more tolerance and a whole lot more of mercy.  He further states, “A diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.” Ouch! How does he write in such a way that his words become a scalpel to my crusted heart. If you find yourselves in a diminishing circle of friends, perhaps your own understanding of friendship will need to morph.About 20 years ago, I wrote an article for a newspaper titled, "Who are the six strong people who will carry your casket to the grave?"  I didn't know the answer to that question then and I still am not sure today. Do you know the answer to that unsettling question?  For some of us that kind of uneasy question may jar us into thinking more about this very important issue in our lives--the question about who are my friends and how do I really find true community?  We live so much of our lives asleep and on the hamster wheel that few of us think below the water line of life as we need to--as God wants and invites us to ponder.Many of the great spiritual truths in our lives are best understood when we accept the notion that goes like this: “I do not know everything. As I live more I will become more wise. I want to be a student of progressive revelation. I want to grow in my understanding of all things that matter: marriage, love, what is really essential in life and my yearning for heaven. As I have morphed and grown in my understanding of community, I can now be ready to lay down some things that have not worked; have not served me or my friends of the past well and now practice a better way of being a friend and having a friend.  Like the Apostle Paul told us, sometimes we need to put aside childish notions and take hold of a more mature understanding of things.  I find myself doing precisely as he instructed us to do regarding friends and community.  Do you?

The Care of the Soul

The care of the soul is not a program to be mastered; not an agenda to be followed; not a curriculum in which we advance. The care of the soul is a way of life—a way taught by Jesus, followed by the early church, practiced in communities in the mid centuries and almost entirely forgotten and neglected by the modern church today.This way of life is a clarion call to pay attention to God in the world and in your own life. Soul Care is about awakening to what really matters in life—far, far more than monetary success, personal achievement and individual significance. The more modern we become, the more likely we are to both forget and ignore the old, ancient ways that we see in the Scriptures. In today’s world, we value the fast and swift; the busy and the one who can multi-task efficiently; the strong and convincing.  By returning to our roots, we find a whole, other way to live--a way the ancients knew and practiced--a way that brought them life in the midst of trials and tribulation. We need this hope today, don't we?Our souls are in need of great care because there is great violence happening in the world today and great violence in our inner lives. The world seems so thin—so much turmoil—so much disturbing us. We seem on the brink of war with so many. Our inner worlds are in turmoil too! We’ve become over-medicated; over stimulated and over committed. We can’t do it all. We can’t keep up. We’re not sleeping well anymore and there always seems to be a committee meeting happening in our minds when we try to be silent.  The expectations we care in our minds about our work, marriage, money, relationships and witness to the world can sink us. They are heavy, often conflicting with one another and sometimes confusing. We need help.[tweetthis]The care of the soul is a non-linear, fluid and kinder way of life.[/tweetthis] Soul Care has a predictable movement which involves these developments:- an awakening that we need to tend to our inner life.- a confession that we can’t do this on our own and that we need help.- a humility to become a beginner in something we’ve never been good at but need to master.- a guide to show us the way forward.Perhaps we need to just stop here and say that the reason why there is so much resistance to the care of the soul is because we are not really good at all at: awakening, confessing, being humble and realizing we need a guide. Our culture has shaped us into almost the exact opposite of each of these postures of the heart. We have been led to believe we are already the enlightened ones. We have no need of confessing anything because we feel we have not done anything wrong. We are stiff-necked not bowing to anything or anyone. Thinking that we are the real trail blazers we have no need of guide because there is simply no time to ask anyone for guidance.Caring for the soul is seen first and foremost in the life and teachings of Jesus, himself. Since he said, “I am the way…” we would do ourselves some good here if we remembered that the first followers of Jesus never called themselves “Christians.” They referred to themselves as the “followers of the way.” This is mentioned five times in the book of Acts alone.I’m sorry that the church, in general, is not much help here. Addicted to programs, attendance and performance, we must return to the ancient ways to find our own ways of doing our life. I lament this so often as I travel, experience and witness the unfolding of our American attempt to be the church.  Personally, I feel like we are on thin ice with our smoke machines, performance driven ways and spectator like methods of worship.  I'm so thrilled to share a new and just released resource with you here. Our friends, Mark and Carrie Tedder have now released a way for house churches, missionaries, those who travel; those who can't go to church--a new way to worship. It's called, "Scattered and Small" and you can view it here. It's a way to worship without the frills and trappings and for those who might want intimate, small and more reflective.  I am thrilled to discover churches that embrace the care of the soul for the sake of others as a basic tenet of their life. I'm so glad to say, I know of many and lift of the chalice of my life to greet their life.Throughout the history of our faith, individual men and women have stood up and stood against the tide of culture defining our faith and how to do our faith. Throughout time, there have always been individual voices beckoning us this way or that way and a part of caring for your soul is listening to the voices who speak with authority, clarity and conviction.  Perhaps, you might decide to start reading books published 100 years ago–for in these pages, you will find a more distilled voice–a voice that we can benefit from in today's modern world. Ancient wisdom still lives today and helps us today.Potter’s Inn is a resource to individuals who seek to care for their soul and then offer that same care to others. Our Aspen Ridge Retreat is a place people can come to be trained, receive guidance from our trained spiritual guides, and explore more resources we offer.To get started or to continue in the journey of caring for your soul, I’d like to suggest the following places to dig in:

1. Get and read, Embracing Soul Care and do a daily reading. Use it as couples, in small groups, with a friend or alone. There are short entries to grasp some new thinking. Also, consider reading Soul Custody. Use this as a guide because there is a short study at the end of each chapter.
2. Consider having a spiritual guide—a spiritual friend where you can enjoy conversations that are deep; life-giving and healing. At Potter’s Inn, we offer this through Skype, but also in person at the retreat.
3. Attend a retreat this coming year. Consider the Potter’s Inn hallmark retreat: The Soul Care Experience. It’s a five-day, guided retreat covering the life-giving themes of soul care. The May 2016 is almost full but there is room in the fall retreat in October.
4. Consider the Soul Care Institute, which is a two-year, cohort modeled training initiative led by seasoned veterans in the field of soul care.

Caring for your soul is a spiritual journey that has tremendous benefits for our physical life, our human bodies and minds–who always seem to beg for more!  It is a journey of the heart and mind, where a place of convergence begins to flow onward and inward.Blessings as you move onward and inward in the care of your soul this year!  

A Key to Experiencing the Abundant Life is Rhythm

Living in rhythm—and the commitment to live life in a sustainable rhythm will help you avoid burnout, experience despair, and running your life on empty.In choosing to live in rhythm you are accepting a different cadence in life than the one which says: Get! Achieve! Acquire! Do!  That kind of rhythm over the long haul leads to the front doors of burnout and failure.  By developing a more life-giving rhythm, you will need to explore a few foundational realities: 

1. Every living thing has a rhythm to it. The birds migrate. The sea ebbs and flows in tidal rhythm. A woman’s body has a biological rhythm and the farmer knows the rhythm of the seasons to plant the crops.
2. Rhythm is found in the Bible in the opening chapters of Genesis when we read that God created the world in six days and on the seventh—he ceased from all his work. The kingpin of a system of living in rhythm begins with the Sabbath rhythm. Work six days and one day is totally off—completely ceasing from all work related activities.
3. The Judeo-Christian faith was built upon a system of rhythm, festivals and experiences that allowed people to look FORWARD in anticipation because they knew Sabbath, or some festival or celebration was just around the corner. It also allowed them to reflect BACKWARD in appreciation of how good their time off was; how nurturing; how life-giving; how fun.
4. The early church embraced this rhythm as is evidenced in the Apostles praying in rhythm at certain times and in observing special seasons and times that morphed into living in a liturgical calendar. For example, this Sunday is regarded as Pentecost Sunday. It’s the day Christians world-wide remember the coming of the Spirit and how the Spirit emboldens our lives and we now live with the Spirit of God living in us.

We've violated rhythm today. We're always on. We're always available. We're always working. Just yesterday two major news magazines featured articles on how Americans do not take their vacations because they'd rather work. Here's a link to one: Business Journal ArticleI discuss this more in The Jesus Life (Chapter 4).  The reality of rhythm is this regardless of your experience in living in rhythm or having never heard of what I am discussing here. Rhythm was modeled by God, lived out in the Old Testament era, anchored by Jesus through his own life style as recorded by Luke and embraced by the New Testament church. By the time of the industrial and technological revolution, we are now always “on,” always, “available,” and always, “wired.” We never quit.It was life giving for me to take our dog Laz to the Vet recently due an ear infection. We arrived at 12:30 thinking we would be seen by the next available doctor. However the sign on the door simply said, “Our office is closed from 12:00pm-2:00pm each day” Please come back during regular office hours. I could have gotten mad and irritated thinking, “I’ll go somewhere else that really wants my money and will stay open in this 24/7 world we live in.” But I smiled. I imagined how nice it would be to be on staff of this large vet clinic who closed each day for lunch, allowing employees run errands and more.We have much wrong in our way of looking at reality. Rhythm is the key to living a sustainable, enjoyable life which we might learn to experience as the abundant life; not the exhausted life. ---------------------------Let me encourage to get and read The Jesus Life as one of your TOP summer reads. It's filled with practical suggestions and resources to help you foster and develop a sense of abundance in your life right now. We're offering a special right now. We'll pay the shipping plus send a free book, Embracing Soul Care--which is a daily devotional reading on how to care for your soul. ---------------Download for FREE the chapter on Living in Rhythm from the Jesus Life!  Go to: www.myjesuslife.com

The Anatomy of a Retreat

Over the course of the next few days, I want to offer you an inside look at the anatomy of a retreat.I'll be doing this while leading a retreat.I'll be giving you an inside look at the anatomy of a retreat...confessing my private fears and sharing my observations while the retreat is going on. I'll be a detective of divinity as Barbara Brown Taylor describes. In my off time, I'll be posting to you--letting you know what I think God is up to in me--and in them. It will be your invitation to be a witness of a retreat and perhaps experience a blessing in some way as you make your way through your own weekend in the days ahead.Twenty four people are gathering at this very moment in a beautiful coastal house on a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Today, we're prepping for their arrival. Putting food in the 10 bedroom/10 bath house. Stocking the refrigerator. Making gift bags that will welcome people. Buying a Sabbath Candle for each couple and placing it in their rooms with a box of matches.A couple has come with us and their help and work is invaluable. We could not do this without help. I'm so grateful they are here and working as hard as they are. I now have a chance to be alone for an hour before the guests start arriving.A spiritual retreat is an event that has intention, purpose and a rhythm to the time that people will invest.Intention...our intention will be to flow through the new book, The Jesus Life. We'll gather from 6 states across the US at dinner with most people having never met. It will be an uphill climb as we journey together to seek to form a bond--a spiritual link between man to man; woman to woman and couple to couple all being linked to God. The Bible promises that a "cord of three strands is not easily broken."I'm imagining stress in many of the couple's lives as the dropped of their kids; said good bye to their jobs a day early because this retreat begins on Thursday---not Friday and this too was intentional. I felt we needed an extra day to create space and time--a mood of not rushing to get through the material and to allow the retreat itself to become the agenda. It's never about the material--or shouldn't be. The people who come are material enough for God to reform, transform and conform just as the Potter does the clay. The intent of this retreat is for our Divine Potter to do with us as He wills and wants. It is all a process and learning to submit to the process is key and foremost in being a good retreat leader or facilitiator. Don't drive the people like cattle. They've been treated this way all week long. Love them. Serve them. Expect God to do great things in them... in me.Purpose...the purpose of our retreat is to encounter the living Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing short. Right now as I sit on the deck anticipating the first person's arrival. I'm praying for them. For me. For God to show up. There's a strong wind blowing right now and I"m imaginging this to be the Spirit invading this tiny island with great things in store for us. To meet the Living Lord Jesus on the shore where the waves are pounding--pounding the beach will be another Easter morning for us.People will rock in the 15 rocking chairs--yes, I counted them. They will sit by the pool....our beach house has its own private pool. They will wade in the water and some will swim. Refreshing waters will revive our souls. For some who are coming are weary, tired and burned out.Am I prepared enough? Every retreat leader must ask themselves this question and for me, I am probably not prepared enough--even though I know the materiel well and wrote the book we will study. But I'd like another day of quiet---more time of solitude. I broke out into a a sweat as I helped get the house ready and thought..."Oh great, now I have to go put on a new shirt that I wasn't planning on wearing. Did I bring enough shirts? Do I feel comfortable in them? Or deeper---do I feel comfortable enough in my own skin and soul to lead the people to the water---the Living Water? That's a good question as a retreat leader to ask themselves. I need to pause now. Bow low. Come before the Lord. Get my heart right and open my self as a vessel before the Lord and say, "I've done all that I can do. Now, Lord, you must do the rest. It's up to you. Not me."So, as we begin this retreat pray for us. If these 24 people who are here are touched by Jesus, then return home and live out what God has poured into them...then the retreat will have met its goal.What is my goal in this retreat?  For those that come to encounter the living Jesus. If that happens then it will have gone well enough. And how will I know if this happens?I will see the prisoner's set free.I will see the lame in body dancing again.I will hear music rise above the waves and it will be glorious praise.I will simply know that Jesus was among us and this, after all is why people want to come to  a retreat. 

Why Isolation, obscurity and hiddenness matter in a social media crazed world!

We have it all wrong in our culture. We have falsely assumed that the better known we are; the more exposure we have; the bigger the platform we develop that we will live a better life. If that were so, Jesus would have told us to expand our world, make ourselves known and be stand-outs in the crowds. What has happened is that in the world of technology and instant fame, now everyone can have a voice and everyone try to have influence—no matter what kind of influence it is. When you look through the men and women formed through time, faith and God’s hands, we notice a different way about going about our lives. God allowed Joseph to spend years in prison when falsely accused. God wanted Paul right after his conversion to go to into the arid desert of Arabia for three long years. In the hidden places, the obscure places and the isolated places where we live our lives, God is at work. This is an important fact that we cannot neglect or ignore in life. God wants long seasons of development; long times of character forming; long periods where he can teach us, form us and shape our heart. Our heart is shaped more in times of isolation and obscurity than at any other times in our lives. It was in prison where Paul wrote many letters of the New Testament—not preaching in big cities. God used his obscured voice muffled by prison bars to elevate his platform. Jesus spent 30 years in obscurity and only 36 brief months in the public’s eye. Something happened in the soul of Jesus while being formed in hidden places that could not and would not be formed with him in the spotlight. This has major implications for people who serve on a team and not the Chairman; people who are assistants and not the President; people who are vice presidents rather than the one who gets the credit early, frequently and often! In this world of social media rage, instant availability and huge ways to gain influence quickly, we must remember this important point:  A shallow life is not a life we are impressed with. A voice not seasoned by times of pain is not a voice that has authority. A platform built by social media rather than the  important planks of character, integrity and truth will not endure the tests of time. Think on this important verse and discuss it with a friend today over coffee or lunch: “Be content with obscurity, like Christ.”  --Colossians 3:4 ------------------------------------- This entry is drawn from my chapter in The Jesus Life on The Way of Hiddenness, which is Chapter 4 in the book. I am receiving such wonderful feedback about this chapter in particular.

An Ordinary Tuesday in the Midst of an Extra-Ordinary Week!

This is the Tuesday before Easter. Perhaps just a day embedded between so many other significant days—another ordinary day. In the week before Easter, the cadence changes on Thursday when Jesus focused on the last time he’d have dinner with his twelve friends. But on Tuesday, we don’t know of anything major or life altering that happened. Perhaps this was the ordinary day when Jesus simply loved on some neglected children on his way somewhere that we might think is more important than doing such a menial task as this. The ordinary days of our lives are often neglected as we await the life-altering days It’s precisely how some days are in our lives. Another day. Uneventful. Plain as vanilla ice cream.  How we live our lives on Tuesdays, though helps determine how we will live our lives on Easter Sunday. As you awaken to this very ordinary, uneventful day on this Tuesday or any ordinary day, try to remember these life shaping thoughts! 

1. Though ordinary, today may be your last day on earth or the last day of someone you love. Don’t take anyone for granted on the days that you take for granted.
2. Ordinary Tuesdays give us the opportunity to successfully practice the presence of God as much as try to do on Easter Sundays. God does not value one day above the next—except perhaps for the Sabbath days of our lives.
3. A long list of Tuesdays make a long journey in the same direction possible. The journey towards our home in heaven is not always filled with drama, superlative language and miracles. It takes many ordinary steps to make the journey meaningful. Celebrate today as one day forward in your journey towards Easter!

----------------------------------------------For more on this theme, please read the chapter in "The Jesus Life" titled, The Way of Dailiness. It's perhaps one of my favorites in the entire book. One that is helping a lot of people as they discover it.----------------------------------------------- Here are three things you can do to help The Jesus Life gain a grass root movement: 1. Order TODAY a few copies on Amazon and have them ready on Sunday--this Easter Sunday to give to a few friends!2. Email 5-8 of your friends TODAY and ask them to read The Jesus Life with you as a small group and if you don't live in the same city, start an email chain where each of you can post your reactions and insights.3. Buy a copy of the book for your Church Library! Here's the Amazon Link to help you get started!http://www.amazon.com/The-Jesus-Life-Authentic-Christianity/dp/143470064X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333454660&sr=8-1

Easter: Why do you really need it?

In this week before Easter, each day I’ll post a few thoughts and a reflective question to sit with and reflect upon prior to experiencing Easter. For Monday, here’s the thought and question: Easter is about second chances and a new beginning. Nature is showing off these days that winter’s woes did not kill off nature’s glory. The Dogwoods bud; the Azaleas blossom in glorious hues of springs arrays; the daffodils buds are in full blossom. All nature is calling us to remember that death gives way to life. Easter is much more than flowers though. It's about someone who was dead coming back to life. It's about second chances to really live before you really die! It's about the power of God over the power of dead-end situations that you might be facing this week before Easter. In just a few days, we will be celebrating this fact on what is really the hallmark of this important lesson: There is a new beginning in every death. Today, sit with this question and see where you go in your heart: What in me is waiting for the second chance?  What in my life needs the touch of Easter upon it cause if it doesn’t touch this place, I will for sure stay dead?  --------------------------Here's an amazing review of The Jesus Life.http://beccawithpeninhand.blogspot.com/2012/04/jesus-life-book-review.html Paste this into your browser and see what's being said about the book and why you need to read it!Amazon just released the KINDLE version. You can have it in just a few seconds right now!

Unpackaging The Jesus Life

It’s profound that the initial followers of Jesus were never called, “Christians.”  They were called, “followers of the way” (see Acts 9:2, 19:23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).  Evidently the new ways Jesus offered were so significant compared to their own futile ways that their name even reflected the direction in which they chose to travel in life. They followed the Jesus ways. The followed, the Jesus ways because the Jesus ways led to actually experiencing the Jesus Life.Today, in our tolerant, afraid to offend anyone at any cost way of living, we have lost the way that leads to life. We’ve become the tired ones; the weary ones; the burned out on religion ones that Jesus came to help. Over the next several days and blog entries, I’m going to give you an overview of each of the ways I describe that we need to live—to return to actually reclaim and recover what we’ve lost. If it’s life we want and most desperately need, then we will need to return to the one and many ways that Jesus lived his life. First, let me address the obvious question I’m getting:  Are there just eight ways we need to follow in order to live the abundant life you describe in your book? No, there are many ways that Jesus lived his life out for us to see as a model—as a way for us to live. In my book, I do not discuss some of the most obvious; most written about or sung about ways. For example, I do not talk about reading your Bible or praying or witnessing or going to church. There’s a plethora of books and sermons on such things I simply did not want to add my voice to this already crowded bookshelf. What I did in my new book, The Jesus Life was to explore eight ways that I ‘ve not seen written about, rarely talked about or spoken about—yet they are as obvious as the nose on your face. It does not take a degree in rocket science to be a follower of Jesus and to actually start living a better life than you’re living at the moment. But it will require a course correction. In the book I talk about the easy goal of simply trying to improve your life by 25%. Think of this way, what letter grade would you give your marriage, your closest friendships, your family life, etc. ?  What if it was possible to improve your life from a “D” to a “B”. That’s what I’m talking about in the book. Get the book. Start reading it and let’s have a discussion about it on the blog. Along the way, I’m going to offer a few incentives to encourage us to begin to follow the ways of Jesus. For example during April, we’re offering $50 gift certificate to a grocery store to be best written or video story that explains having a family meal together and what happened in the meal time. The rules are explained on our homepage www.pottersinn.com under “buzz.” Throw your questions to me and I gnaw on them and give you some feedback—the best I can about the life I think we’re all so desperate to live. But first, you have to get the book. Why don’t you order a few extra right now during the book’s release at Amazon.com and give them away to a few people you like and one or two you’re struggling with right now (the honest chapter on difficult relationships will help you here). And let’s get started living a life that is more in the way Jesus lived than how we’re doing it at the moment. --------------------------Here's the Amazon link to buy your copy now and get started:http://www.amazon.com/The-Jesus-Life-Authentic-Christianity/dp/143470064X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332966572&sr=8-1 

Day Two at the Beach: The Lesson of Retreat and Return

“The bare beauty of the channeled whelk tells me that one answer, and perhaps a first step, is in simplification of life, in cutting out some of the distractions. But how? Total retirement is not possible. I cannot shed my responsibilities. I cannot permanently  inhabit a desert island. I cannot be a monk in the midst of family life. I would not want to be. The solution for me, surely, is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it. I must find a balance somewhere, or an alternating rhythm between these two extremes, a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return. In my periods of retreat, perhaps I can learn something to carry back into my worldly life. I can at least practice for these two weeks the simplification of outward life, as a beginning. I an follow this superficial clue and see where it leads. Here in beach living, I can try.” TGOTS,  p. 24 Many, I know, myself included are living more of a divided life than a fulfilling one. More of a fragmented life, than a whole one. More of a posture of surviving than thriving. Yet, when one reads the very words of Jesus, himself—it is the sense of the abundance of life that we are in search of in our “one wild and precious life.”Here on my beach pilgrimage, I find myself yet again, asking the same questions: How can I make life work better? What am I doing wrong? What steps can I talk to live and cultivate the abundant life Jesus said could be mine? How can I live in the ebb and flow of life and not fight the current so much?Anne Morrow Lindbergh gives us a clue on Day Two of our Pilgrimage.  It is to embrace the alternating rhythms of life rather than digging into accepting the same ole—same ole.  The life that seems inescapable is actually just that—escapable and I must learn this and to escape more often. We need rhythm. I need this time at the beach. My soul is craving it. The sighs are too deep for words and my stare at the ebbing horizon shows me that my mind is still busy with all of the distractions that I packed up and brought here. How will we get all of this done? Can’t we take a break now? What will people think of us if we cocoon and re-emerge? Will we even want to re-emerge?Lindbergh coaches us to begin to simplify the outer world as the first step—to let go of the so many things that burden us. Our time obligations, our involvements, our meetings and to shed them the way the hermit crab sheds his shell. This is what one does on a true retreat. You remove yourself from the begging of people and begin to listen to the begging of one’s own heart—the begging from God, perhaps. In the shedding, there is freedom and the freedom is what we all want, I think. There is an ebb and flow in life and there is not always ebb--neither is there always flow. There is a rhythm to everything that has life and to stay alive and live alive, I have to learn to live in rhythm. (In Chapter 2 and 3 of The Jesus Life, I go into this in much more detail).You move into a simpler flow and cadence of life—then return to your world with all of the breathless living and the plaque of hurry-sickness. You learn to live in the rhythm of both ways of living—not just one. There is time for both and there must be time for both if one longs to live the undivided life—or as I am calling it, the Jesus life.  He lived in this rhythm and so must I. There is absolutely nothing attractive about a person lives a manic life in search of the peace that God gives through rhythm—through time—through retreat.I am glad to be reminded that the life of retreat and return is a crucial and vital cadence that we must live. Today, I must give myself permission to live at the beach; to let go of all I brought here and to rid myself of all the burdens I have carried here. They do not fit in the suitcase one packs to live at the beach for a few weeks.And I must remember that all of these burdens will be there for me to pack up and resume carrying when we leave this place. But for now, there must be the beach.  There must be rhythm. The mountains will be there when I get back. But for now, I must let go of my mental, spiritual, emotional and relational backback and prepare to receive the Gift of the Sea.